Turning Point
by Jaina Solo2
Summary: This is a possible chapter from the sixth book and depicts the pentultimate confrontation between Harry and Voldemort. What will happen and how will effect the people that Harry loves the most? Main characters: Harry & Ginny


**Disclaimer:** I own nothing Harry Potterish. That all belongs to J.K. and I'm definitely making no money off of this.  
  
**Author's note:** This was written for a task in the JC Hogwarts House Game. The task was to right a random chapter from the sixth or seventh book. This is a chapter from the sixth book and is my speculation on the second to last confrontation between Harry and Voldie.

* * *

"No! Ron!"  
  
The desperation and fear in Hermione's voice was plainly evident, but Harry barely heard it. He had seen the curse that the Death Eater had hurled towards his friend, but he hadn't stopped to see what had happened to his friends. He was beyond worrying about his friends for the moment. He couldn't think. He couldn't feel. Harry could only focus on one thing as he stood among the ruins of Hogsmeade. He had to kill Voldermort. It was his destiny and it was one that he would willingly embrace. He had boiled with rage all throughout the year, stewing with anger and helplessness as muggles and muggle borns were slaughtered by Death Eaters throughout Britain.  
  
Now the Death Eaters had brazenly attacked Hogsmeade. Harry hadn't seen it coming, but he had felt the pain in his scar, growing and growing until he thought his head would explode. Even at the moment his head still continued to almost blind him to his surroundings as he stumbled through the village.  
  
To his left, he vaguely saw Neville bravely defending a small knot of first years students- a combination of Slytherins and Gryffindors if he wasn't mistaken. Neville's voice loudly and strongly threw curses back at the Death Eaters attacking him. Harry didn't stop and help. He couldn't. It was almost as if Harry was being drawn deeper and deeper into the heart of the small village.  
  
Through the pain that consumed his mind as he stumbled down the street, Harry could hear the pandemonium around him. Students shrieked and panicked screams filled the air, followed by curses and an eerie mix of bright flashes of different color lights. A bright burst of light flashed so closely by him, that he could feel it catch at his loose robes. In the next moment, Harry was suddenly flying through the air, almost deafened by the explosion of the building behind him.  
  
He saw a hurried figure rush past him and yank him roughly to his feet before shoving him in the general direction of a safer area. Harry staggered for a moment and the moved away from the area of safety towards his original destination. He wiped the sweat out of his eyes and clenched his fingers around his wand, already slick with sweat.  
  
Standing between he and his destination were a trio of Death Eaters. For the first time that night, he was starting to think more clearly. He could see the titanic battle in front of him. Professor Mcgonagall stood on the opposite side of the Death Eaters that were in front of him. She held them off skillfully. He had never seen her look as she did at the moment. She cast spells quickly and efficiently, holding the Death Eaters back.  
  
She was protecting the man behind her. Professor Dumbledore stood there, wrapped in a terrible and awesome struggle of magic with Voldemort. Harry was shaking now. Not with pain, but with rage. This was the man that was responsible for the murder of his parents, his godfather, and so many other people in recent months. This was the man that he would have to kill.  
  
Harry vaguely noted two small knots of students cowering near the relative safety of a nearby building as he rushed through the Death Eaters and past Professor McGonagall, towards the raging sphere of magic that seemed to be wrapped around Dumbledore and Voldemort. He stopped abruptly once they were in front of him, suddenly unsure about what to do. His decision was made for him almost instantly, however. The bright sphere of magic around them began to glow even brighter, so bright that it was almost impossible to continue to look at it, and the light began to pulsate weirdly.  
  
The pulses sped up until Harry was forced to turn away. In the next moment, the bright light exploded outward with great force, knocking Harry painfully to the dirt and throwing Dumbledore and Voldemort back away from one another.  
  
Dumbledore, suddenly looking like the very old man that he was, lay limply on the ground, while Voldemort seemed to be far less effected by the magic. As Harry got back to his feet, Voldemort pushed himself to a kneeling position his wand dangling at his side. His red eyes burned with hatred and triumph as his gaze met Harry's. He let out a horrible laugh.  
  
"What will you do now, boy? Your precious savior is just a week old man." Voldemort paused for a second as if thinking, "Oh, that's right, without that meddling old mudblood lover's interference, you'll die. Just like you should have years ago."  
  
Harry raised his wand, quicker on the draw than Voldemort, knowing better this time than to pit his wand directly against Voldemort's. He would have to throw the curse first. The words were on the tip of his tongue. Avada Kedavra. It was the solution to the problem that had haunted since he was eleven years old, and Harry hesitated. It was for less than a fraction of a second, just a moment's hesitation at actually uttering the killing curse and taking someone's life- even if it was Voldemort's.  
  
Voldemort didn't hesitate. His wand flashed through the air almost quicker than the eye could see and he laughed as he spoke the two words in a sinister hiss. "AVADA KEDAVRA!"  
  
Harry saw the flash of green light rushing towards him. He could feel his hair blow back with the force of the magic as the curse flew towards him. He was frozen unable to move as it came towards him. He had no where to hide and no way to escape him. The green light was almost to him and then it was suddenly gone. Harry blinked, banishing the slight blindness from the bright green light, and found himself staring perplexed across the few feet that separated him from the furious form of Voldemort. That was when the glimmer of red caught his eye and he looked down for the first time. Immediately horror penetrated the shock that had enveloped his mind at still being alive, as his gaze took in the beautiful red hair that spilled gently over the freckled face of Ginny Weasley as she lay impossibly still in front of him.  
  
"Ginny!" The anguished scream was torn from Harry's throat as he dived towards her limp body. She had come out of no where, jumping in front of the killing curse that had been meant for him. She had saved him without thought at the cost of her own life. "Ginny!" He repeated no less desperately, cradling her body in his arms. Willing her to start breathing again, to suddenly wake up in his arms as if she had only been asleep or knocked unconscious, but he knew it wouldn't happen. It couldn't. There were no second chances with Adava Kedavra. Not for people who weren't The-Boy-Who-Lived.  
  
Voldemort laughed gleefully as he rose smoothly to his feet. He glanced behind Harry and hesitated as he started to take a step closer to him, raising his wand in anticipation of a final curse to end it all. Something behind Harry, however, made him stop and with a sharp, angry flourish of his wand, he disappeared with a pop, but not before he had said ominously, "We will meet again, Potter!"  
  
Harry was left cradling Ginny's dead body, as all over the village Death Eaters began to apparate away. People started slowly to move about as the immediate danger disappeared, and people began to rush towards him. McGonagall hesitated for a moment beside Dumbledore before hurrying over to Harry.  
  
She dropped to her knees beside him in the middle of the street. "Potter," she asked quickly, as she reached over to Ginny, checking the girl for any signs of life, "Are you injured?"  
  
"No," he said numbly, tears streaming down his face. Ginny. She was dead. She was his best mate's little sister and she had died saving his life. It wasn't fair. He had hesitated and it should have been him who paid the price, not her. She had never done anything. The only reason that she had ever gotten involved in this whole bloody war was because of him.  
  
A crowd had begun to grow around them, survivors straggling towards them, all falling into a hushed silence as they witnessed the scene before them. Harry could hardly see them through his tears, as he wept openly over Ginny's body.  
  
"If only it had been the mudblood." The words were muttered in a derisive sneer that Harry was all too familiar with. The crowd, or at least those who had heard what Malfoy had said, gasped.  
  
Harry carefully moved aside, gently laying Ginny down on the street, careful that in death he didn't hurt her anymore. He rose to his feet, sending a low murmur through the crowd. He saw Dumbledore, supported by Snape moving to stand by his side and Professor McGonagall slowly standing up on his other side. He ignored all three of them, as he searched the crowd methodically for Malfoy.  
  
The blonde haired boy stared back at him, paler than usual, but with his usual sneer still firmly in place. "What are you staring at, Potter," he demanded and Harry could feel the edge of fear in Malfoy's voice.  
  
Harry looked at him, lifted his wand until it was pointed directly at Malfoy's chest and then almost screamed, "Crucio!" And he just kept screaming, casting all of the most horrible, painful curses that he could think of at Malfoy. He ignored the sudden screams of the crowd and the shouted demands of the professors around him for him to stop. He just continued trying to make Malfoy scream until he felt the impact of a spell hit him in the back. He half-turned as he fell towards the ground to see Snape looking at him wand in hand, and wearing a pitying expression. It was the last thing Harry saw before his world went mercifully black.**_-fin_**


End file.
